


Motherless Boys

by ameliacareful



Series: Strangers and Brothers [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean is a firefighter, Dean shows his hunting chops, Dean thrown out at 14, Episode: s01e03 Dead in the Water, Gen, Sam is a Hunter, Supernatural AU - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:27:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4493550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ameliacareful/pseuds/ameliacareful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean has found his brother after twelve years apart but the man he found is not what he expected.  Dean finds himself trailing after Sam on hunts, feeling out of his depth.  A boy who saw a monster take his father and now won't talk brings out things in Dean that he thought he'd long forgotten.  </p><p>Part of the series Strangers and Brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cops & Chili Cheese Dogs

*        *        *

            Dean was driving the Impala and Sam was in the passenger seat doing the Terminator thing with the sunglasses. They were on their way to Carson, Wisconsin. The Impala was a total gas hog. It got about 12 miles to the gallon, freeway. As far as Dean could tell, Sam was a recycling, vegetable eating, NPR listening nutcase who should have been driving some gas saving Japanese car so it was kind of surprising he’d hung on to the black beast. It was tempting to give him a hard time about it except Dean figured if he said anything, then Sam would immediately sell it and buy a Prius, out of spite. Cars that didn’t make any noise when they were moving were unnatural. Automotive vampires or something.

            “Did Dad send these coordinates?” Dean asked.

            Sam didn’t answer.

            “Are you asleep behind those Foster Grants?”

            Sam grinned. “Maybe.”

            “This is more test, huh? Keep Dean in the dark? See if he gets pissed off enough to bail?”

            Sam still didn’t answer.

            “I already told the fire department I was resigning.”

            The Impala had suspension to beat the band, car rode smooth, but it wasn’t quiet. Unlike Sam.

            “Roni thinks I’m having a nervous breakdown,” Dean said. “Some sort of foster care flashback.” He wasn’t sure his girlfriend wasn’t right. He wasn’t sure they were still together.

            Passive-aggressive bastard appeared to be staring out the window.

            Dean pulled the Impala over to the shoulder. It was nice country; greener than Colorado which was mostly pine and scrub. Colorado green was bluish and grayish green. This was Crayola green. Dean got out and popped the trunk. He rummaged around until he found the old box full of cassette tapes. He pulled one at random: Led Zeppelin IV. He threw the box in the footwell at Sam’s feet and shoved the tape in the old tape deck under the CD player. For a moment he thought the thing didn’t work or the tape was so old it had broken, then “Black Dog” started.

            He pulled back out onto the highway and it was a little like going back in time except of course when he was fourteen he had never driven this car except when with his Dad bleeding like a mother and he didn’t think they’d played tapes then.

            At least it had gotten Sam looking at him.

            “If you’re going to act like that S.O.B. we might as well go full on John Winchester,” Dean said. John never explained. Really, he had a lot of good memories of his Dad. He knew what had happened. When he punched his Dad he backed him into a corner. His Dad had lost his temper and said stuff he felt like he couldn’t take back and thrown Dean out. A man was his word and all that. But Dean suspected Sam would have complicated feelings about being compared.

            “It’s a case,” Sam said. “I haven’t heard from John.” Sam reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a newspaper. “Drownings in a lake. Three in the last six months. Latest was a week ago. Sophie Carlton, 18. They dragged the lake but didn’t find the body. Funeral was two days ago. Buried an empty coffin for what it’s worth.”

            “Gives the family closure,” Dean said.

            Sam snorted.

            “You don’t think so, Dr. Freud?”

            “I don’t believe in closure,” Sam said.

            “Thanks for the warm and fuzzies,” Dean said. He turned up the volume on Led Zep. He found he kind of liked the old music.

            Sam gave him the finger.

            He liked that, too.

#

            The local sheriff pretty much despised them on sight. He didn’t understand why Fish and Wildlife was interested in the drownings since the dam was beyond repair (which they had to pretend they’d already known). The lake was draining and would be gone in six months. Dean was pretty sure he didn’t approve of long hair on a Game Warden but Dean let Sam the Thespian do a lot of the talking anyway, right up until Sherriff Jake Devin’s pretty daughter, Andrea, showed up.

            It was only to flirt. He didn’t know where things stood with Roni, partly because he couldn’t explain about hunting. He told Roni about the Adderall smuggling Sam was doing because he could and he didn’t like to keep secrets from her. He couldn’t tell her about the woman in white and wendigoes and his fear that Sammy was, well, not exactly suicidal but maybe on the crux between getting Yellow Eyes and not worrying enough if he got killed in the process. Roni thought smuggling prescription drugs was an insane risk and she’d made it clear that she wanted Dean to stop.

            He loved Roni even if his life with her felt less and less real every day.

            Flirting was just flirting. Not to mention it pissed off the sheriff and pissing off cops was like chili cheese dogs; you shouldn’t but how could you not? A small boy followed her in, walked around her towards the conference table. Clearly her kid.

            “Oh, hey there,” Dean said. “What’s your name?”

            The kid just kept walking. It was clearly Dean’s day to be ignored. He was wearing clean socks and underwear for Chrissakes.

            “His name is Lucas,” Sheriff Devin said.

            The conference table was really more like a lunch table. It was in a common room where the deputies probably hung out. The kid, Lucas, sat down like he was familiar with the place and his mom gave him paper and crayons. He did that thing where kids put their head down and draw and make the rest of the world go away. Sammy used to do it with books.

            “Is he okay?” Sam asked with what Dean thought was real feeling.

            Sheriff Devin said, “My grandson’s been through a lot. We all have.” He said it in a way that didn’t invite further conversation and stood up which added ‘get out of my office.’ “If there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know.” Which Dean was pretty sure meant ‘fuck off.’

            “Thanks,” Dean said anyway, watching the kid draw. “You know, now that you mention it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced motel?”

            To his delight it was Andrea who said, “Lake Front Motel. Go around the corner. It’s about two blocks south.”

            He pretended a bit of confusion. “Two— would you mind showing us?”

            Sam gave him a pained look. Andrea laughed. “You want me to walk you two blocks?”

            “Not if it’s any trouble,” Dean said.

            “I’m headed that way,” she conceded. She bent over Lucas and he liked her more for the moment of sweetness, of easy concern. “I’ll be back to pick up Lucas at three,” she said, ostensibly for her father but more to that bent head. “We’ll go to the park, okay sweetie?” She kissed the boy on his hair. He glanced up as they left.

            Dean waved to the boy.

            Lucas nodded.

            “So, cute kid,” Dean said.

            “Thanks,” Andrea said.

            Sam retreated behind the safety of his sunglasses.

            “Kids are the best,” Dean said. Okay, it was not brilliant.

            Andrea didn’t dignify it with an answer. They stopped in front of a sign that said in huge visible-from-the-highway letters, Lake Front Motel. “There it is, like I said, two blocks.”

            Sam tried to hide his amusement by pretending his nose itched. He failed.

            “Must be hard,” Andrea continued, “with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pick-up line.” She walked on, calling over her shoulder, “Enjoy your stay.”

            Sam stopped even trying not to grin.

            “Bite me,” Dean muttered.


	2. Crayons and Army Men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another cheap hotel, and the boy who won't talk. Dean finds a connection with Lucas.

*    *    *

            Another cheap and horrible motel. Another chance for Dean to think about all those news exposes where they take a black light into a motel room and show you all the invisible body fluid stains on the bed spread and carpets. Sam sat on his bed, legs straight in front of him and ankles crossed, oblivious to the possible assault on his immune system. He studied something on his laptop. Before that they had kicked around what might be in the lake; water sprites, water wraiths, kelpies, ghosts, monsters. Sam didn’t like lake monster because he said Loch Ness and Lake Champlain had hundreds of sightings and few drownings. Here there had been half-a-dozen drownings in the last twenty-five years, no sightings and no bodies recovered. Didn’t fit.

            Dean hated this part. Sam just had so much lore at his fingertips and Dean felt…stupid. Like he was Sam’s chauffeur.

            The name of one of the victims, Christopher Barr, kept niggling at Dean though. Dean hated research but he liked patterns. Patterns were like pool. You looked at the table and it resolved into shots and angles. They’d stopped for lunch before they got to town and Sam had shown him some stuff on the laptop and he thought there was something... “What did the papers say about Barr?” Dean asked.

            Sam clicked on the laptop and then drew a surprised breath. He spun the laptop around to show Dean. The headline said LOCAL MAN IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT and showed a front page photo of a smiling man in a deputy sheriff’s uniform with his arm around the shoulders of his son. His son Lucas.

            Sam turned the laptop back and read. “Apparently he took his son swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned. Two hours before somebody rescued the kid.”

            Two hours sitting there, staring at the water where something had reached up and taken his father. Adults tell themselves that they’re mistaken, that they didn’t see a ghost or that it was really a bear. That there are no monsters in lakes. Kids don’t have that defense.

            “Maybe we have an eyewitness after all,” Sam said softly.

            “No wonder that kid was so freaked out. Watching your parents die,” Dean said. “You don’t get over that.” In his mind was that boy, Lucas, in an orange life preserver, sitting with his knees drawn up right in the middle of a floating wooden platform watching the falsely calm blue waters of the lake, knowing something was there.

            Sam was staring at him.

            He blinked at Sam. “What?”

            “No,” Sam said. “I guess you don’t.”

#

            Andrea was in a park with swings and picnic tables. She was sitting and watching Lucas at another picnic table, coloring. Dean was tired of his cheap suit and glad to have found her. Lucas stopped coloring for a moment and marched his army man around the top of the drawing.

            Dean let Sam make the overtures. He’d burned his bridges but maybe Andrea and Sam could bond over that.

            “Mind if I join you?” Sam asked.

            “I’m here with my son,” Andrea said.

            “Mind if I say hi?” Dean asked.

            As he walked towards Lucas he heard Andrea say to Sam, “Tell your friend this whole Jerry Maguire thing is not gonna work on me,” and he felt a flash of anger and embarrassment.

            He was surprised when he heard Sam answer, “I don’t think that’s what this is.”

            He liked Andrea. She was funny and smart and he was sorry he’d been a bit of a douche. But mostly right now he wanted to talk to Lucas: his witness who wouldn’t talk.

It had taken him awhile to figure out what Sam’s weird comment was about but even though he figured Sam was talking about him when he was a kid, he was twenty-six now and there was a lot that had happened since Mom died. He may not have gotten over it in the sense that you never get over the things that shape who you are but he had gotten pretty far away from it. Raised by Dad, CPS and foster care at fourteen, college and the fire department and Roni. He barely remembered Mom dying.

            He wasn’t sure what to do. His deal with kids, well he did remember being young and how people were always talking to him and Sam like they were morons. So rule #1, don’t talk to a kid like they’re a moron.

            “How’s it going?” he said to Lucas.

            He didn’t want to, like, loom over the kid so he knelt down. Lucas was coloring like it was his job. Not like he wanted Dean to go away so much as like this fucker was important. (Wait, don’t swear, even in your head Winchester because you’ll forget and swear in front of the kid.)

            The toy soldiers were familiar. They had them when they were kids. They were great, they were cheap. Dad would buy them in drugstores in the tiny little toy section where they came in huge packs for next to nothing and then bitch when they were everywhere in the Impala. Dean picked one up. It was the guy throwing the grenade. They even had the same poses.

            “Oh, man, I love these things. I used to have ‘em.” Dean made the grenade explosion sound. Then the M16 sound. He put the toy soldier back in exactly the same place he found it. He used to hate when adults messed shit up, too.

            Lucas was still filling something in.

            “So, crayons is more your thing?” Dean couldn’t explain why but he could feel the kid listening. “That’s cool. Chicks dig artists.”

            He thought that might have gotten a slight slowing of the otherwise ferocious crayon action. There was a pile of drawings on the bench. Dean wanted to know what was so important. He really wasn’t sure Lucas wanted to share but what the hell. He casually picked up the top one, an eye on Lucas to see if that was a problem. No vibes off of Lucas that this was an issue.

            The top one was a big black swirl. Didn’t take a child psychologist to figure out the kid wasn’t all puppies and rainbows.

            The second one, oddly enough, was a red bicycle.

            “Hey,” Dean said. “These are pretty good. You mind if I sit and draw with you for awhile?” He picked up the black crayon. “I’m not so bad myself,” which honestly was a load of crap. But he was competing with a four year old so the bar wasn’t too high, right? As he drew he said, “You know, I’m thinking you can hear me, you just don’t want to talk. I don’t know what exactly happened to your dad but I know it was something real bad.” Christ, he was just winging it. Probably screwing everything up. “I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I saw something.”

            He waited for a reaction. Lucas drew furiously.

            “Anyway,” Dean plunged ahead. “Well, maybe you don’t think anyone will listen to you, or, uh … believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don’t even have to say anything. You could draw me a picture about what you saw that day, with your dad on the lake.” He waited a minute. If this were a Lifetime movie there would be a big breakthrough here, right? But it wasn’t and there wasn’t. Like Sam said, empty coffins didn’t necessarily bring closure.

            “Okay,” Dean said. “No problem. This is for you.”

            He held out his picture and although Lucas didn’t exactly look up, he stopped coloring and Dean knew he could see the picture from the corner of his eye. It was really less than inspiring. It was four stick figures. Embarrassing to have his ass handed to him by a four year old.

            “That’s my family,” Dean explained. “That’s my Dad. That’s my Mom. That’s my geek weird brother and that’s me.”

            Lucas was looking.

            “Okay,” Dean admitted, “I’m a sucky artist.”

            There might have been a touch of a smile.

            “I’ll see you around, Lucas,” Dean said.

            He didn’t know if he really did anything. Seriously, what did he know about kids?

            Andrea smiled a little when he walked back, like maybe she didn’t think he was a complete and total douche. “Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me. Not since his dad's accident.”

            “Yeah, we heard,” Dean said. “Sorry.” Sorry? What do you say to something like that? Something better than ‘sorry.’

            But Andrea nodded like ‘sorry’ was an okay thing to say.

            Sam did a solid by being more intelligent, of course.   “What are the doctors saying?”

            “That it's a kind of post-traumatic stress,” Andrea said.

            “That can't be easy,” Sam said, all concern. “For either of you.”

            “We moved in with my dad,” Andrea said. “He helps out a lot. It's just...when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw...”

            A pause.

            “Kids are strong. You'd be surprised what they can deal with,” Dean said and Sam gave him an appraising look.

            Lucas got up and headed towards them.

            “You know,” Andrea smiled a bittersweet smile, “he used to have such life. He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish—”

            Lucas had a picture.

            “Hey sweetie,” Andrea said.

            Lucas handed Dean the picture.

            Dean could have been knocked over by the proverbial stick. “Thanks,” he said. “Thanks, Lucas.”

            Lucas walked back towards his crayons and army men. Andrea watched him, clearly caught by surprise. Sam was looking at Dean, his face a study, seemingly not surprised at all.

 


	3. Watching Your Parents Die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected conversation with Sam. 
> 
> Part of the Strangers and Brothers series. Dean fought with with his father at 14, and was thrown out. Twelve years later when he ran into Sam hunting in an abandoned building. Now they're on the road together.

*    *    *

    They walked back to the Impala.  Dean tugged at his tie.  
    “Bobby said you didn’t talk, except sometimes to me.”  Sam’s sunglasses were on top of his head so Dean could actually see his expression for once.  It wasn’t an expression he was used to seeing.  Sam looked a lot like he had in Palo Alto before…  
    “Bobby Singer?”    
    “Yeah,” Sam said.  He stopped at the passenger side of the Impala, leaned his forearms on the roof.  “Are you ever going to let me drive the car again?”  
    “No,” Dean said, “Probably not.  Needs a tune up.  And you’re using the wrong tires.”  
    Sam’s eyebrows went up, amused.  
    “What do you mean, I didn’t talk.”  
    “After Mom died.  You and me, John dumped us at Bobby’s for awhile.  You didn’t talk for months.”  
    “Huh,” he says.  “So you’ve talked to Bobby about me?”  He ran his hands nervously over the door frame.  
    “Yeah,” Sam said.  
    “Why?”  
    “Because if there was anybody in the world I would call ‘dad’, it would be Bobby.”  Sam put his sunglasses back on and opened the passenger door and climbed in.  Sunglasses back on.  Dean could feel something slipping away.  
    Dean got behind the wheel.  “Sam,” he said.  
    Sam looked at him but whoever the nice guy was, he was gone and the Terminator was back.  
    “God, we’re not gonna hug or anything, are we?” Dean said.    
Sam relaxed infinitesimally looked back out the windshield.  Dean decided he was starting to get Sam.  Learning when to wait for him.  
    The whole conversation was weird.  Sam saying he talked to Bobby Singer about Dean  The seesaw with his brother was making Dean crazy.  Sam was mostly locked down—since Jessica had died, locked down so tight he was nothing but hard surfaces.  Then there’d be a crack where Pinocchio would become a real boy.  Even times where Dean thought Sam might be twenty-two instead of twenty-two going on Vulcan.  The guy was still using Xanax and bourbon to sleep and rarely sleeping more than six hours.  Sometimes Sam would just sit straight up while obviously still asleep or thrash around in a nightmare but he kept a 9mm under his pillow so Dean stayed on his side of the room.  When they weren’t hunting, Sam started the day with an Adderall and researched demon signs.  Sam had never needed Adderall.  If there was one thing Sam wasn’t, it was ADD.  But Adderall was just a kind of speed and so the perfect thing to counteract a hangover and focus a grief stricken mind.  Lock out distractions like a brother.  
    What did it mean, this sudden need to share?  
    Dean was pretty sure of one thing.  He wasn’t welcome to ask.

  
#

            The next guy to drown didn’t drown in the lake. He drowned in his kitchen sink. Sam figured that since the lake was draining, whatever it was that was killing people was running out of time. The guy who drowned was Lucas’s uncle and Dean couldn’t help but worry about Lucas. It made Dean a little more understanding of why Sam drank every night.

            They tried talking to the guy’s father, Bill Carlton, but the guy was unwilling to give them much, saying he’d talked to too many people. It was clear he was flattened by the death of his son but Dean had the sense there was more. “He’s been through hell,” Dean said to Sam as they walked away from the Carlton house. “But he’s hiding something.”

            Sam leaned against the Impala, clearly thinking about next steps.

            Dean looked back at the house and it struck him—

            “What?” Sam said.

            “Maybe Bill’s not the only one who knows something.” Dean opened the backseat door of the car and handed Sam Lucas’ drawing. It was a kid’s drawing but it sure looked like the Carlton house.

            They went to Andrea’s house, the sheriff’s house. Nice place on the lake, well kept. Dean remembered how hard it was to get used to a place like this. To stay in one place for two who years. Clean carpet and clean sheets and thick towels. After school sports. No monsters. No guns under the pillow. Everything in Dean said to leave the kid alone and at the same time everything said it was too late, the monster was here and Lucas knew. Lucas _knew_. God this job. Talking to shattered people. He knew why they had to. He was afraid what would happen to Lucas if they just stopped.

            Andrea didn’t expect them at the door—Sam looking gentle and serious, Dean looking, well Dean didn’t know what he looked like but he was sure he was looking more intense than he should. It was okay to look kind of intense when he was fighting a fire or answering a medical emergency. People liked calm but kind of intense then. It said, ‘I’m capable but I’m taking this seriously.’ Right now it was probably saying, ‘I’m a lunatic.’

            “I just need to talk to him,” Dean said. “Just for a few minutes.”

            She didn’t like it. “He won’t say anything,” she said. “What good will it do?”

            Sam eased between them, “Andrea,” he said, “we think more people are going to get hurt. We think something’s happening out there.” Dean heard it in his voice. Sam meant it. This was his Sammy. This was the kid who made friends with the misfit at school. This was the kid who worried about him and Dad. It was pure and true, like a bell.

            “My husband, the others, they just drowned. That's all.”

            Dean let the moment hang just the briefest bit. “If that's what you really believe,” he said, “then we'll go. But if you think there's even a _possibility_ that something else could be going on here, please let me talk to your son.” She was a sheriff’s daughter, with a sense of duty. She broke.

            Lucas was in his room, on his stomach, coloring. The army men were standing guard around the sheets of paper. Sam and Andrea waited in the doorway while Dean went and crouched by Lucas. The boy didn’t look up but Dean didn’t need him to. He knew Lucas was listening because he knew he and Lucas understood each other.

            “Hey, Lucas. You remember me?” It was a dumb thing to ask. A grown-up treating a kid like a moron. Dean saw that Lucas had drawn two more pictures of red bicycles.

            Be square with the kid. “You know, I, uh, I wanted to thank you for that last drawing. But the thing is, I need your help again.”

            Lucas was drawing…a person in the water.

Dean slotted that in the back of his mind. He unfolded the picture Lucas drew of the Clayton house. “How did you know to draw this? Did you know something bad was gonna happen? Maybe you could nod yes or no for me.”

Nope. Lucas was coloring. Coloring, coloring, coloring.

            Okay. Be straight with the kid. Best way you know how, Winchester. “You're scared. It's okay. I understand.” Was it right to tell a four year old the truth? After two hours on that platform, this kid already knew the truth. “See,” Dean continued, “when I was your age, I saw something real bad happen to my mom, and I was scared, too. I didn't feel like talking, just like you. But see, my mom—I know she wanted me to be brave. I think about that every day. And I do my best to be brave. And maybe, your dad wants you to be brave too.”

            Lucas dropped the crayon and looked up. His eyes. It was like that paramedic run when the little girl smacked her head on the coffee table and they worked on her and worked on her and Dean remembered being outside dismantling the swing set so they could put the medflight heli down in the backyard and her mother was watching him and her eyes. She knew, she knew her daughter wasn’t coming back. Nobody should know about death at four.

            Lucas handed Dean a picture. Dean looked at it. There was a white church, a yellow house, and a boy with a blue baseball cap, and red bicycle in front of a wooden fence.

            “Thank you, Lucas,” Dean said. One person to another. Not talking like the kid was a moron at all.

#

            There were at least two thousand yellow two story houses in the area, Dean figured. Sam agreed and added that at least there were only a thousand white churches (the asshole). And then there it was; the white church and next to it, the yellow house with the wooden fence. They looked at each other and Dean parked the car.

            Mrs. Sweeney was old and Dean’s heart sank. Maybe, though, a grandson with a red bike and a blue ball cap lived here. No one lived here by that description, Mrs. Sweeney said, sad. Peter had been gone for thirty-five years now. The hair stood up on the back of Dean’s neck. There was a picture of a boy on a side table. Sam pointed out army soldiers on another table (a museum to a boy who had never come home) while Mrs. Sweeney said that the police had never had any idea what happened and neither had she and that losing him was worse than dying. Dean picked a photo of two boys off the mirror and flipped it over. Peter Sweeney and Billy Carlton, 1970.

            It was a ghost. Destroying Carlton’s family. He could feel him and Sam moving and thinking in sync in a way that was so good. Having a brother felt so good. It would have been a great feeling if there wasn’t a little boy at risk in the middle of it.

            They went back to Carlton’s place, arriving just in time to watch Bill Carlton head out to the middle of the lake in his boat. And then the lake took him.

 


	4. Listening to Your Gut

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sheriff Devin has checked their bona fides and says they can go to jail or get out of town. Sam picks door number two.

*     *     *

            Dean had the horrible sense that everything was squeezing in on him. He suspected that wasn’t a surprising thing on a hunt. It had felt that way with the woman in white and with the wendigo. A child who disappeared. A child who wouldn’t speak.

            When he first went into the foster system he fought anyone and everyone. Kids, cops, social workers. His first placement had been a disaster. And his second. Then he’d been placed with a couple, Jim and Linda Stevens, who had neither churned the foster care system for money nor seemed to think they were going to be his parents. They were Christian but they were more concerned about getting him some therapy and a high school education. They had saved him. For the first time he’d had a life that didn’t revolve around training to kill stuff and hunting. He still did Thanksgiving with them. Thought of them as a kind of family. Wasn’t sure how he was going to tell them about this. _I found my brother._

            Roni was also pretty serious about therapy and he’d gone back for awhile when some of the work he did brought the old stuff back. He hadn’t talked about vamps and werewolves. He’d talked about foster care and trauma.

            They got to the sheriff’s office and Lucas was sitting in a chair rocking. Andrea was there and when she looked at them her face held no blame which was something.

            Sheriff Devin was pissed. More pissed when Lucas leaped for Dean, grabbing his arm and wouldn’t be soothed. Andrea and Dean were both saying _what’s wrong, Lucas, Lucas_ , but the boy wasn’t talking of course. Dean could see that he was terrified and he needed Dean to understand. Needed Dean to fix it. It was an old familiar weight on his shoulders and Dean almost looked at Sam but 6’4” guys didn’t need their brothers that way anymore. They took Xanax and drank bourbon, called their father John, and used a 9mm on their nightmares.

            Sheriff Devin informed them that they were at the sight of Bill Carlton’s disappearance and Carlton was an expert swimmer. That he had called the Fish and Game Department and no one had ever heard of them. That they had two choices. Be held in jail as material witnesses or leave town.

            Sam thought door number two was a good option.

            They checked out of the Lake Front Motel. (Good bye suspicious body fluid stains.) Threw the duffels in the trunk.

            The Impala waited at a traffic light.

            Dean thought about Lucas. The boy knew. He was connected to something. He _knew_.

            “Green,” Sam said.

            “What?”

            “The light’s green,” Sam said.

            Dean turned right through the intersection.

            “The interstate is the other way,” Sam said.

            “I know.”

            “This job is over,” Sam said. But it wasn’t the Terminator voice.

            “I’m not so sure,” Dean said.

            “If Bill murdered Peter Sweeney and Peter's spirit got its revenge, case closed,” Sam said. “The spirit should be at rest. Not a salt and burn but…”

            “All right, so what if we take off and this thing isn't done? You know, what if we've missed something? What if more people get hurt?”

            Sam focused on him, laser-like. “Why do you think that?” It wasn’t an argument.

            “Because Lucas was really scared.”

            Sam considered this. He sank back in his seat. “Who are you and what have you done with my brother,” he said. But he didn’t argue at all.

            At the sheriff’s house, Dean rang the doorbell. There was a long minute while they waited and Dean really expected that Andrea would answer the door, maybe in a robe with a towel on her head, and be really angry. Call her father. They’d be run out on a rail or even end up in a cell—

            Lucas opened the door, terrified and so glad to see Dean.

            “Lucas!” Dean said, “Lucas!”

            Lucas took off running, and Dean took off after him, Sam following.

            Water was running down the stairs. It was in the hallway. It was pouring from under the bathroom door. Lucas started pounding on the bathroom door. Dean pushed him out of the way and Lucas grabbed on to Dean so Sam reared back and kicked the door in. Sam was so fucking strong when he got like this. The tub was full of brown water, lake water, and Andrea was invisible under but Sam reached in. Dean saw him grab something an pull. Andrea wasn’t a big girl. She surfaced and then got pulled back under and then Sam pulled again. Dean saw the tendons stand out in Sam’s neck and she came out of the water and started coughing.

            Sam had her. Sam had her.

            Dean had Lucas. The boy buried his face in Dean’s shoulder.


	5. Water and Air

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ghost makes it's claim. Dean tries to take something back from the lake.

*     *     *

            Dean couldn’t stand still after that. He was worn out the way he was after working a big fire but buzzed like he’d taken one of Sam’s Adderall. Sam sat in the living room with Andrea who was dry and wearing clean cloths. Dean wandered around the room, touching knickknacks, looking through books and photo albums and crap.

            “Can you tell me what happened,” Sam said.

            “No,” Andrea said. It wasn’t until she started crying and said, “It doesn’t make any sense,” that Dean realized that she wasn’t stonewalling, she was just overwhelmed. “I’m going crazy!”

            “No you’re not,” Sam said. “Tell me what happened. Everything.”

            Dean reminded himself that Sam had sat in a hundred living rooms where people had seen ghosts and poltergeists and husbands and wives had turned into werewolves and ghouls and had gentle conversations. It was like being a realtor or a funeral director or a cop. Or a paramedic or a firefighter. _‘What did you take? I’m not a cop, I don’t care. I just need to know to help you.’_ You learned the drill.

            Andrea had heard a voice. It said, _‘Come play with me.’_

            Dean found a scrapbook that said JAKE 12 YRs OLD. Jake, he figured out, was her dad, Sheriff Devin. It had photos of Devin as a boy scout. (Big surprise.) And a photo of Devin next to Peter, the boy who disappeared.

            Dean looked up and saw Lucas. He was supposed to be in bed but he was awake and staring out the window towards the backyard. Looking. Knowing. The hair rose on the back of his neck again. He wanted to put the kid in the Impala and drive.

            “Lucas,” he said and his voice sounded so calm, so normal. “What is it?”

            Lucas opened the back door and walked outside and they all followed. It was coming on dawn.

            “Lucas, honey?” Andrea said anxiously.

            Lucas stopped. He looked at the ground, almost as if he was pointing. He looked at Dean.

            That spot, Dean thought. He wanted Dean to look in that spot. Okay.

            To Andrea, Dean said, “You and Lucas get back to the house and stay there, okay?

            Andrea pulled Lucas back into the house and the boy went, looking over his shoulder. Sam didn’t say anything although it was hard to tell what he was thinking when Dean went the Impala and popped the trunk and handed him a shovel. They went back and dug. Sam dug with the efficiency of someone who had done a lot of it.

            It wasn’t very long before Sam’s shovel chinked against metal. He went to his knees, tossing the shovel aside and Dean did the same. They dug with their hands until they could get hold of the frame and pulled out an old, dirty, red bicycle.

            Sam’s voice was soft. “Peter’s bike.”

            “Who are you?” Devin’s voice cracked across the grass. He was pointing a gun at them.

            “Put the gun down,” Sam said.

            Dean found himself thinking again that guns looked much bigger when people pointed them at you. At least this time it wasn’t Sam doing the pointing.

            “How did you know that was there?” Devin asked.

            “What happened?” Dean asked. Because when he was supposed to be afraid he could never keep his mouth shut. “You and Bill killed Peter, drowned him in the lake and then buried the bike?” He was aware that Sam gave him a quick glance like, maybe he should be a little less mouthy. “You can't bury the truth, Jake. Nothing stays buried.” It was true. Look at him and Sam. Dad had tried to hide Sam away and he’d found him. It had taken too long but he had.

            “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Devin said in that way people did when they really didn’t know what else to say.

            Which pissed Dean off. Fuck. Why did people get so high and mighty? “You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney thirty-five years ago. That's what the hell I'm talking about.”

            Andrea was back out in the yard. He had barely noticed her coming back out. “Dad!” she said.

            “And now you’ve got one seriously pissed-off spirit!” Dean snapped.

            “It's gonna take Andrea, Lucas, everyone you love,” Sam said, his voice calm and level. Being mister voice-of-reason. “It's going to drown them. And it's going to drag their bodies God knows where, so you can feel the same pain Peter's mom felt. And then, after that, it's going to take you, and it's not going to stop until it does.”

            “Yeah, and how do you know that?” Now Devin sounded pissed off.

            “Because that’s exactly what it did to Bill Carlton.”

            “Listen to yourselves, both of you. You’re insane.”         

Idiot. Like people drowned all the time in a kitchen sink? “I don't really give a rat's ass what you think of us,” Dean said, trying to hold on to his temper. “But if we're going to bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them into dust. Now tell me you buried Peter somewhere. Tell me you didn't just let him go in the lake.”

            “Dad?” said Andrea. “Is any of this true?”

“No. Don't listen to them,” Devin said. “They're liars and they're dangerous.

            “Something tried to drown me. Chris died on that lake. Dad, look at me.” Andrea was insistent. When her father finally did look at her, she asked, “Tell me you—you didn't kill anyone.”

            Devin looked away.

            “Oh my God,” Andrea said.

            That broke the truth from him. “Billy and I were at the lake. Peter was the smallest one. We always bullied him, but this time, it got rough. We were holding his head under the water. We didn't mean to. But we held him under too long and he drowned. We let the body go, and it sank.”

            Fuck, Dean thought. No salt and burn. No way they’d find the body.

            Devin was still talking. “Oh, Andrea, we were kids. We were so scared. It was a mistake. But, Andrea, to say that I have anything to do with these drownings, with Chris, because of some ghost? It's not rational.”

            Dean’s mind was going. No salt and burn, only thing to do was to wait until the lake was drained.   “All right, listen to me, all of you. We need to get you away from this lake, as far as we can, right now.”

            Andrea gasped and for a moment Dean thought, what was so weird about getting away from a lake where people kept getting killed?

            Then Devin said, “Lucas!”

            Lucas was on the dock, leaning over the side, reaching towards the water for something. Dean ran, knew Sam was running. Sam had long legs but for once, Dean was faster. Dean yelled, “LUCAS!”

            He heard Andrea call something.

            Something pulled Lucas into the water. He could tell by the way the boy’s body moved. He saw it, the head of the ghost rising from the water. _Come play with me_ , Andrea had said. He never stopped. At the end of the dock he flattened into a dive and he heard Sam hit the water an instant after he did.

            The water was murky and impossible, the morning still gray and there was too little light to see much under the water. He touched bottom, found and saw nothing and searched until he had to come up, surfaced to hear Sam say, “Andrea! Stay there!” and dove again.

            Nothing. Nothing. His eyes wide open. Looking for anything, a small child couldn’t be that invisible. Lucas. He’d left one boy. He wasn’t going to abandon another.ccHe surfaced and flipped the water from his hair and eyes, searching for Sam. After a moment Sam surfaced, hair black and slick against his head. “SAM?”

            Sam shook his head.

            Back into the silence underneath. Everything seemed so suspended, as if time didn’t matter, but it did. Time was passing. Hold on Lucas.

            He surfaced again to see Devin getting ready to dive in the water. And to see Peter the ghost surface. Eyes above the water and skin the color of the water, the color of the dead.

            “Jake!” Dean yelled, “NO!”

            Devin went into the water and Peter took him down.

            Dean dove, not knowing who he was diving for. He swam, his clothes clinging to him, making him clumsy. It had been so long. How long could a four year old possibly hold his breath? His own chest was bursting. Then his fingers brushed a leg and he pulled the limp boy to his chest. He rose up and up and up into the light and burst to the surface, shattering the water.

            Bringing the boy up. Into the air. Into the air. Into the light.

 

 


	6. Completely Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean overhears a phone conversation between Sam and Bobby.

*      *      *

        The boy was okay. Some reflex thing that drowning kids do.

        Lucas came out of the ER talking. He was no longer mystical and haunted. He was a four year old kid with a sucker. Dean taught him to say, “Zeppelin rules!” and Andrea laughed and told him out of Lucas’ hearing that he was an asshole but she sounded like she meant it in a nice way and it was a great feeling.

        Dean felt positively high.

        They dragged the lake but never found Devin’s body.  Dean knew they wouldn't even when the lake was drained and gone.

        After the high came a letdown, a crash, really, and while they were watching some crappy movie with Liam Neeson on HBO at the hotel, Sam had three glasses of bourbon and popped a Xanax before finally falling asleep at three. He was up at seven-thirty, on his laptop.  Dean felt the same sense of emptiness.  When Lucas had come to under his hands, had blinked and known him--and how often did that happen, really?  That Dean had given someone mouth to mouth and it really worked?  It had been better than anything he had ever felt but now he was like that lake with all the water drained out of him, sitting in some crappy hotel staring at a crappy bedspread.

        Dean apologized to Andrea for not saving her father and she said that they had saved her son so she had nothing but gratitude. Sam said simply that you can’t save everybody and they drove out of town and down a bunch of blue highways on the map, avoiding the interstates and stopped at another dump of a motel.

        They ate dinner, or mostly Dean ate and Sam picked at a chicken breast and broccoli. They were barely back at the hotel for ten minutes before Sam asked for the keys and said he was going to pick up some beer. It was a blatant attempt to get away for a bit. Dean was as tired of Sam as Sam was of Dean. Nothing in particular, just living together 24/7. After a bit, Dean wandered out to get a soda from the machine and sat by the empty swimming pool in the back freezing his ass off in the November weather and drinking orange pop because he’d thought it was a great idea until he’d tasted it and remembered why no one drank orange pop after they were ten.

       Coming back he heard Sam talking to someone but then he realized Sam was on his cell, pacing. The Impala shown in the hotel lights and there was a twelve pack of Heineken sitting on the sidewalk proving that Sam had no taste in beer.

       Dean was about to make a crack.

       “…to tell you not to save me those Colorado jobs anymore. You can give them to whoever’s closest,” Sam said. “No…he’s fine. Hasn’t moved.” Sam’s voice sounded young, real, like a person with feelings. Dean drew back into the breezeway, out of sight but not out of hearing. “He’s…um, he’s with me. No, it’s not, it’s stupid… No, not on purpose. I was doing that salt and burn in Greeley. It was in this dump of a neighborhood and a kid set fire to the house.” Sam laughed a little. “Yeah, it occurred to me but if I let it burn there were all these other houses real close so I put it out but somebody must of called the fire department and guess who came to check it out.” A momentary pause. Then Sam said irritated, “I’m not incompetent, Bobby. He was upstairs and the ghost manifested and what was I supposed to do, let it go after him? It’s not like they issue firefighters salt and iron.” A pause. “Cause the back of his coat said Winchester. Not hard to figure out even though he was wearing all the fireman shit… I tried to keep my back to him. I thought he wouldn’t recognize me… yeah, bit of a difference from when I was ten.” A long pause. Dean could almost make out a voice from the other end. “I…” Sam’s voice _cracked_. “I don’t know. He just did. It’s all fucked up.” Sammy sounds on the verge of tears. “I tried to ditch him. I really did. I burned the fucking house down. He found me at the motel.”

       There was a long pause again and then a shaky laugh from Sam. “You got no idea. He’s got instincts like a shark. You should have seen him on this last hunt. He hasn’t done anything in twelve years and it’s like I was along for the ride. He was going to do one hunt and then, I haven’t, I’m sorry, I haven’t told you, oh God,” Sam was crying on the phone and Dean felt like some kind of pervert or something, listening to this, “It killed Jessica. It killed my Jessica. In Palo Alto. The way it did Mom. My Jess, my Jess—”

       No way Sam wanted Dean to hear him like this. He should walk away.

       He knew he wouldn’t.

       He listened to Sam pull himself together with a long breath. “Thanks,” almost soundless, and then with gathering strength, “I don’t, I can’t…we’ve got another job,” he heard Sam say. “No, really, I’m okay.” Another breath and Sam sounded almost normal. “We’ll come by soon. I’ll bring him by when I can. I promise. I know you want to see him. Maybe you can talk him out of hunting.” Another of those pauses. “He’s only staying because of Jess. It’s my fault. He feels guilty or something.” Bobby talking again. “It is my fault. I said some things I…he quit his _job_. He quit the fire department. He’s gonna lose his girlfriend if he doesn’t get his act together...forget it…no, forget it.” Sam’s voice was rising in anger. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter what I want, it matters what’s right!”

      Dean was freezing. He should have brought his jacket.

      Sam laughed, low and bitter. “Come on, you know why hunters don’t have retirement plans. I’ve been doing this for a decade. I’m chasing a demon, it’ll be amazing if I last another. What’s right is to get Dean back to his life, his real life, before he gets all tangled up in this one and before whatever it is that John won’t tell me about, whatever he thinks I am or I’m supposed to become, I become. Hey, maybe if Dean stayed _he_ could shoot me.”

      Then Bobby must have talked for a long, long time. Dean wasn’t cold anymore. He had his fists clenched and he couldn’t remember when he’d felt this way last. So furious with, with… he didn’t know what. He wanted to punch something. He wanted the world to _bleed_.

      Sam sounded contrite. “Don’t…I’m sorry. Yeah, you’re right… don’t Bobby. I’m…I’ll be okay. Dean’s here, I’m not alone or anything. Are you taking care of yourself?”

      Dean listened for a moment more to Sam talk about someone named Rumsfeld and then walked back to the empty pool. Pale concrete and leaves rustling like the feet of something sucked dry of life. He sat and took deep breaths.

      He was proud of himself. When Sam came looking for him Sam had no trace of sadness in his face. He just said, “Dean? What are doing?”

      Dean had no trace of anger or sadness in his and could say, “Just had to get out of that pit of a motel room, dude.” It sounded completely normal.

Fin


End file.
